


After the End

by 27dragons



Series: 27dragons' Tony Stark Bingo [22]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angel Tony Stark, Apocalypse, Crossover - Good Omens (TV), Demon Bucky Barnes, Established Relationship, Happy Ending, M/M, background Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens) - Freeform, or not as the case may be
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-11
Updated: 2020-01-11
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:41:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22214974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/27dragons/pseuds/27dragons
Summary: Tony and Bucky have both been on Earth for a little over two thousand years. They’ve been lovers for just a little less than that, hiding it from their superiors Above and Below. But now the Antichrist has been delivered and things are swiftly coming to an End. How can they say goodbye, knowing they’ll never meet again?Of course, things don’t always turn out the way they assume. God’s plan is ineffable, after all.(fill for the Tony Stark Bingo 2020, square A2 - AU: Good Omens)
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Tony Stark
Series: 27dragons' Tony Stark Bingo [22]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1270892
Comments: 49
Kudos: 343
Collections: Tony Stark Bingo 2020





	After the End

Tony narrowed his eyes at the woman in the waiting area and read her. Two kids, a third on the way. Her deadbeat husband had walked out on her three times before and come back, and she was teetering on the edge of hoping that this time, he would just _stay_ gone. Money was tighter than tight, she was picking up loose change in the streets and pinching every penny as tight as she could.

And she still volunteered at the soup kitchen every week on her day off. Still gave half her sandwich -- that was all she’d get for the day, because most of the food went to the kids -- to a homeless man on the corner. Still treated others with compassion and respect.

If anyone deserved a miracle, it was this woman.

And she needed this machine for her work. Especially once the baby arrived and she wouldn’t be able to work outside the home for a while.

Tony gently smoothed his hands over the old computer’s case, coaxing the worn parts into a fresher state, clearing junk and hidden viruses, herding the bits around to defragment them and make them a little easier and faster. Then he glanced at the woman again, closed his eyes, and doubled the RAM, swapped out the core processor for something that had at least been manufactured this decade, and bumped up the hard drive space by a smidge. Nothing she should notice.

“Good news,” he called. “It’s not entirely irredeemable. Just needed a little TLC.”

She’d surged to her feet and was hovering at the door to the workroom. “You can fix it?”

“Already done,” Tony assured her. “Just one loose connection, though I did some basic diagnostics to be sure, and ran an optimizer on your disk. You might see a slight performance boost.”

“Oh, thank you!” Tears welled in her eyes. “You’re a miracle worker, you really are!”

“Pish and tosh,” Tony said. He shut the ancient system down so she could take it home.

“How much do I owe you?”

“Pfft, that wasn’t even half an hour, I’m not going to charge you for that.” She argued with him, because of course she did, she didn’t want to cheat Tony of his livelihood, but eventually he convinced her that she’d be doing him a favor by providing word-of-mouth advertising.

When she’d left, Tony turned off the OPEN sign and locked the front door. He was putting the display models to sleep for the night when the little shop suddenly turned chilly, and a thick, dark smoke oozed out of the vents.

“You miracled that woman’s computer,” Bucky said as soon as he’d manifested sufficiently.

“She deserved it.” Tony eyed the demon as he finished his closing routine. “You’re early.”

“There’s news,” Bucky said. “You haven’t heard from Upstairs, yet?”

Tony hesitated. He mostly avoided Upstairs, these days. “No?”

Bucky’s demon-yellow eyes flashed behind the goggles he wore. “It’s time.”

Tony’s step faltered. “No.”

“Yeah. The Antichrist has been delivered.”

“Where?” Tony leaned heavily on the counter. “How long...?”

“Somewhere in England, is all I know. Eleven years.”

“That’s all?” Tony looked up, and Bucky was suddenly very close, almost pressed right against Tony’s side. “Eleven years is all we have left?”

Bucky’s lips thinned. “Probably less,” he said. “They’re bound to call us Home beforehand. Assembling of the armies, and all.”

“...Yes.” Tony let himself fall against Bucky’s chest, tuck his face into the curve of Bucky’s neck, slip his hands around Bucky’s back to plunge into those luscious blacker-than-night feathers. “I’m not ready to let you go.”

“I know, doll.” Bucky’s claws scraped lightly over Tony’s scalp. “I know. At least... At least we’re probably not going to be facing each other directly, when the time comes.”

That was true; Bucky was a warrior through-and-through; Tony was a decent enough fighter, but his real skill lay in craft. The Host would station him at the back, most likely, to build and repair their weapons.

It was scant comfort, though. At the end of Days, one or the other of them would be destroyed. Their time together would be over. Two thousand years since they’d first met, and just over eighteen hundred since they’d become lovers. It wasn’t _enough_.

But what could they do? When their respective Masters summoned them, they were bound to go.

* * *

The Apocalypse had come... and then it had gone. Tony had stoked the fires of the forge and readied his materials. He’d watched as the other angels assembled, drawn their armor and weapons from the Quartermaster, and taken their places in the ranks. He’d tried not to wonder, too much, how Bucky was faring amongst the rest of the Fallen.

Whether he would see his lover again before the End. Whether it would be kinder or crueler if he did.

(He’d tried not to wonder, but he hadn’t succeeded very well.)

But after all of that, all the preparation and anticipation and fear and hope, the Apocalypse had simply... not. The Antichrist had repudiated his father, it was whispered. Had chosen, in the end, neither Heaven nor Hell, but _humanity_.

Tony had slithered like a shadow past the livid Gabriel and the frothing Michael and quietly resumed his position on Earth, by dint of there not being anyone around to command him otherwise.

Things on Earth had changed. A little. Not a lot. But a little. People seemed, generally, a little happier. A little more content. It was a nice shift, Tony thought. He wondered if it was the Antichrist’s doing, or if the human race had, however dimly, recognized the fate they’d escaped, and were still reeling in relief.

He’d been back on Earth for two weeks when he received a letter.

He’d never seen Bucky’s handwriting, but he knew immediately that’s what it was, elegant and sharp-edged and just a little old-fashioned, just like the demon. It was written on actual parchment, which Tony hadn’t seen for over a century. It said,

_Come to London as soon as you can arrange it. --B_

The final swoop of the B curved around under the word and ended in a little arrow, reminiscent of Bucky’s spaded tail.

He shut down the shop without a second thought and made his way immediately to the airport. He had to miracle himself a passport and a ticket, but that was alright; the entire Earth was still _drenched_ in the miraculous residue of the Apocalypse-that-wasn’t. No one would notice such small miracles, not right now.

He spent the entire duration of the flight staring at the letter, turning it over and over in his hands, examining it right down to the molecular level to see if there was another message hidden there -- but if there was, he couldn’t find it. No hint of what he would find in London, or where he should go once he’d arrived.

The first thing he saw when he got off the plane was-- Bucky. Waiting for him at the gate, wings spread wide with joy. Tony launched himself past the tired mother corraling her even more tired children in front of him and flung himself into Bucky’s waiting arms.

This was a gift. If Armageddon suddenly re-occurred tomorrow, then he would cherish _this moment_ , holding his love again when he’d been so certain they would never even see each other again.

“Shh, doll, I’ve got you,” Bucky murmured, nosing into Tony’s hair, knocking his halo askew. “It’s all right now.”

After a long moment, Bucky drew back, pulled him through the corridors and out into the late summer air. “Come on, doll. Somethin’ you ought to see.”

“In London?”

Bucky grinned at him. “Yeah. C’mon.” He ushered Tony into a car, refusing to answer any questions.

Bucky swung effortlessly into a parking space that happened to be open. He pointed out the window. “What do you see, there?”

Tony leaned to look. “The... Ritz?”

“Keep looking.”

Tony shot the demon a sharp glance, but Bucky just pointed again. Tony looked harder. “There’s... people on the sidewalk,” he reported. They were across from the windows that looked out of the dining room, so he peered through them. “People having dinner. They’re all dressed very nicely, of course, and-- Oh, shit, that’s _Aziraphale_ ,” Tony breathed.

“Is it?” Bucky sounded idly interested but not at all awed or terrified or even surprised.

Tony whirled around to look at him. “You knew? You brought me here to show me the Angel of the Eastern Gate? Bucky, if he senses you here, if he finds out about us--”

“Relax, doll.” Bucky pointed again.

An antique car was pulling up to the curb just a few cars farther up the street. A big, black Bentley.

“Who’s...” The words died in Tony’s throat when the car’s door opened and the driver emerged. Not a man, but a demon, ancient and vastly powerful, from the palpable weight of his aura. “Who is that?” Tony whispered.

Bucky smiled toothily. “These days, he goes by Anthony J. Crowley. Your lot might better know him as the Serpent of Eden.”

“What the _fuck_ ,” Tony breathed. Crowley was strolling -- sauntering, really, his hips swinging like the sway of a serpent’s body -- toward the Ritz. “What is this? What’s happening?”

“Shh, it’s okay,” Bucky soothed. “Just watch.”

Crowley went into the Ritz, and Tony found himself holding the breath he didn’t actually need. This was no coincidence, he was sure of it.

Through the windows, Tony watched as Crowley sashayed over to Aziraphale’s table. Aziraphale glanced up, then stood. Every muscle in Tony’s incorporation tensed as--

Crowley leaned in to kiss Aziraphale.

“What?” That wasn’t some outdated mortal greeting, no Judas’ kiss of betrayal.

There was _tongue_ involved.

“ _What?_ ”

Next to him, Bucky was fairly quivering with glee. “That’s what I wanted you to see,” he said. “No way would you have believed me if I’d just _told_ you.”

“You are a very skilled liar,” Tony admitted. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from the pair in the restaurant.

Aziraphale pulled out a chair for Crowley. When he resumed his own seat, their hands twined together, right on top of the table, for anyone to see.

“What does it _mean?_ ” Tony wondered. The _Serpent of Eden_ and the _Angel of the Eastern Gate_?

“It means the way things have been done for the last six thousand years aren’t the way things are anymore. It means maybe the End actually _did_ come, but it wasn’t the End of Earth, just the End of the War. It _means_ , doll,” Bucky drawled, slipping his arm around Tony’s shoulders, “that we don’t gotta hide anymore.”

Tony finally tore his eyes away from Aziraphale and Crowley to look up into Bucky’s eyes, glowing like the heart of an ember, dangerous but vitally important. “You really think so?”

“Yeah, sweetheart,” Bucky said, dipping his chin to brush his lips across Tony’s. “I really think so.”

Tony melted into the kiss, and was once again grateful that neither of them technically needed to breathe. “So,” he murmured when they finally parted. “Want to go see if there’s a room available in there?”

Bucky grinned. “I think one might just have opened up.”


End file.
